Anti-gentrification protests in Vancouver, Canada have escalated from stealing signs to allegedly setting fire to a housing construction project. They are protesting 'social mix', a redeveloping project aiming to close the city's gaps between rich and poor neighbourhoods.

The project targets Downtown Eastside, often labeled "Canada's poorest zip code". Critics of the project are going after expensive new restaurants and condominiums, saying the neighbourhood has been put up for sale at the expense of its poorer residents.

Redevelopment project intended for coexistence is causing cries of gentrification.

Downtown Eastside is known as a site of frequent drug use. Netizens online use #dtes to discuss the area.

The Involve own your own home billboard in front of 3 homeless shelters on cordova and main is deeply disturbing #dtesRobert Morrisey

Wondering why the #overdose of #DTES #Heroin rates are so high and no press? 4 #fataloverdose in only a span of a few days? #Poverty #YVRMAP VAN

"If you need help in the downtown eastside, people will help you. Even when they have nothing, they'll try to help." #DTES #overheard ^zobFirst United Church

One restaurant, PiDGiN, has been a particular target of protests for its location across the street from Pigeon Park, where "a typical day...will see numerous drug activities and people passed out". Protesters marching through the neighbourhood have held signs saying "Feed the hungry, eat the rich" and "Fire to the condos".

And they keep marching. To Pantages, then PiDGiN. #dtesgord_katic

The neighbourhood council has called for an end to the demonstrations, adding that it "shares many of the goals of the anti-gentrification protesters". Others online reported mixed reactions from residents:

In three days of covering the protest, we saw the spectrum: residents who shouted at the protesters, residents who cheered them on, residents who were ambivalent, and residents who accused them of being privileged, university-educated kids who live in Mount Pleasant and know nothing about the neighbourhood. The PiDGiN protestors should take this very seriously. If they continue their picket in the belief that the community and its council is mistaken (e.g. ‘they don’t know what’s in their own best interest’), then they run the risk of creating serious resentment — resentment between the community and the protestors that purport to support them.terry.ubc.ca

The Downtown East newspaper explained criticism of the project:

Upscale businesses create zones of exclusion where we are uncomfortable, ridiculed or asked to leave. Our networks of care and support are threatened or disrupted. Gentrification is changing a community where low-income people feel at home and accepted amongst people in the same boat into a space where low-income people are managed through institutional control and policing, or pushed out.downtowneast.net

But others defended the redevelopment and pushed back against critics of "gentrification".

It looks like the @pidginvancouver protest has collapsed while the restaurant thrives. Economic terrorism failed. #DTESPaul Done/epicmedia

Now you can stomp your feet and protest restaurants, but it won’t stop the fact that new condos, and the businesses that come along with them, will keep moving eastward. This is a mathematical issue. If people keep coming to Vancouver, and Canadians keep having babies, they are going to need homes.hushmagazine.ca